Dorset Half Brother Of Top Tory Charged With Sex Abuse

The half brother of a senior Conservative MP has been charged over alleged historic sex abuse.

Charles Napier, 67, from Sherborne in Dorset, is accused of one count of inciting a child to commit an act of gross indecency, Scotland Yard said.

He is the half brother of MP John Whittingdale.

Police also charged a second man, Richard Alston, 69, from Suffolk, who is accused of five counts of indecent assault and three counts of gross indecency with a child.

The charges date back to the late 1970s and concern an alleged victim who was 11 years old at the time.

Both men are due to appear at Westminster Magistrates Court on July 29.

The men were arrested last year under Operation Cayacos, a strand of a wider investigation which was launched following claims by MP Tom Watson.

In 2012 Mr Watson used Parliamentary privilege to claim that a file of evidence used to convict Peter Righton of importing child pornography in 1992 contained ''clear intelligence'' of a sex abuse gang.

He wrote to Scotland Yard, who launched criminal investigation Operation Fairbank, which has since spawned two more inquiries - Fernbridge, which is looking at claims linked to the Elm Guest House in Barnes, south west London in the 1980s, and Cayacos.